US software company VMWare Inc launched EVO:RAIL, a “hyper-converged” infrastructure appliance, here on Tuesday.

The company claimed this would offer Indian businesses the fastest way to build and deploy software-defined data Centre IT majors. Dell, HP and EMC would make available the VMware EVO:RAIL-based offerings for India.

“EVO:RAIL is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that helps IT organisations streamline the deployment and scale-out of software-defined IT infrastructure,” said a company statement. Fujitsu, Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp have partnered with VMWare and their respective appliances will be introduced soon.

Boost to IT firms The appliance will enable IT firms to produce virtual machines within minutes of powering on the appliance, thereby responding faster to business demands, simplifying infrastructure administration and reducing operating costs. “VMware EVO:RAIL is a new building block for software-defined data centre environments that takes the guesswork out of building, deploying, scaling and managing software-defined infrastructure services,” said Arun Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India.

According to an IDC report commissioned by VMware titled “Empowering Organizations in a Software Defined World”, an estimated $4 billion is expected to be saved between 2014 and 2020 with a software defined approach to managing IT in India.